abandonware games sorted by popularity

Jump 'n Bump proves that rabbits can be surprisingly competitive. Released in 1998, this multiplayer-focused platform game pits adorable bunnies against one another in frantic matc...

Fallout 2 takes everything that worked in the original and gleefully pushes it further, louder, and weirder. Released in 1998, it expands the world, the humor, and the sheer number...

By 1999, Liero had become a cult favorite thanks to its frantic real-time battles between heavily armed worms. Unlike turn-based competitors, the action never pauses, creating chao...

Toobin turns the simple idea of floating downstream into an arcade challenge that is much less relaxing than it sounds. You control a character riding an inner tube through winding...

Gloriana sails into the realm of naval strategy with a focus on historical battles and tactical maneuvering. Ships move with a deliberate pace, and positioning is everything, turni...

Phantasie 1 is a 1987 role-playing game that helped establish many of the traditions later associated with computer fantasy adventures. Players create a party of heroes, explore da...

Battlecruiser 3000AD (1996) is less a game and more a test of faith. Ambitious beyond reason, it promised total control of a massive starship—crew management, planetary landi...

Turbo OutRun brings Sega's famous arcade driving style to the home computer, putting the player behind the wheel of a fast sports car and asking a very simple question: how long ca...

No relation to Dune (except for being a total rip-off), Arrakis is a homebrew strategy game that feels like a tribute to the sandiest planet in sci-fi. You mine spice, fight vaguel...

In Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine, Keen infiltrates a massive space station engineered to obliterate planets like it’s swatting flies. This is Keen at his most tech...

In Battle Master (1991), you play as a heavily armored murder-hobo leading an army across a fantasy world that really doesn’t want you there. It’s part action-RPG, part...

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun, released in 1989 for DOS, is a platformer that looks cheerful but hides a surprisingly mean streak. Set in a circus filled with traps, clowns, and ...

The Beverly Hillbillies turns the television comedy into a lighthearted computer adventure built around the Clampett family and their wonderfully strange arrival in Beverly Hills. ...

In Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp (1990), Dirk doesn’t just fight dragons—he bungles his way through time itself. Want to rescue your wife Daphne? Prepare to stumble ...

Released in 1986, James Bond 007: Goldfinger adapted one of the most beloved Bond stories into a text-heavy adventure experience. Rather than relying on fast reflexes, players must...

Rise of the Triad: Dark War is a 1994 first-person shooter famous for its fast action, outrageous weapons, and gleefully excessive violence. Built on an enhanced version of the Wol...

In Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, tennis is stripped down to its essentials: a racket, a ball, and the growing suspicion that your opponent has somehow mastered the laws of physics...

Noctis is less of a "game" and more of a meditative ritual performed through DOS interface, with fonts so pixelated they might just be ancient runes. You play as a silent explorer ...

Total Carnage is a wonderfully unsubtle top-down shooter in which the solution to almost every problem is to fire more ammunition. Lots more ammunition. You control heavily armed s...

Before the term “VR” existed, Knightmare (1986, DOS) gave you a taste of immersive peril. Inspired by the UK TV show, you guide a blindfolded knight through deadly dung...

Starglider is a 1986 science-fiction action game that combines fast flying with shooting, exploration, and a surprisingly open environment. Players pilot a futuristic craft across ...

Chicago, 1920s. You’ve got a tommy gun, a fedora, and a score to settle. Capone is part gangster sim, part shooting gallery, and part fever dream. The graphics are muddy, the...

The Three Stooges brings the chaotic comedy of Moe, Larry and Curly to the computer in a collection of slapstick challenges that are much more interested in laughs than dignity. Th...

Styx is a compact arcade-style adventure built around exploration, hazards, and the sort of unforgiving design that older computer games considered perfectly normal. The action tak...

Moraff's Revenge delivers a classic dungeon-crawling role-playing adventure packed with monsters, treasure, exploration, and enough dangerous corridors to make staying home seem in...

Wing Commander 3 takes the series into a more cinematic era, combining space combat with live-action sequences and a considerably more ambitious presentation. You once again face t...

Ah, Black Sect (1993), where the puzzles are cryptic, the villagers are creepy, and the atmosphere is so thick you could spread it on toast. A classic first-person point-and-click ...

Treasure Trap is the sort of game that understands the basic appeal of a good dungeon: there are treasures to find, dangers to avoid, and absolutely no sensible reason to keep goin...

Ikari Warriors 2: Victory Road in 1988 continued the tradition of heroic soldiers storming impossible odds while carrying enough ammunition to challenge basic physics. This sequel ...

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventu...